Tag Archives: BirdAbroad

When I first came to China in 2004, I came alone. In the small town to which I moved to teach English, I would often eat out alone, poke around the streets alone, and wander through the nearby fields and villages alone. Except I wasn’t really alone; there was usually someone tagging along just behind me, or hanging around my dinner table, or moving through the grocery store aisle by my side. They were usually under the age of 30, and often came in pairs. They wanted to ask me where I was from, try out their few words of English, see what I was buying, or just generally observe my strangeness as I went about my business. People approached me often to take my photo.

When I came back to live in China again in 2009, I came with RP – and hardly anybody approached me anymore. China changed so much in the first decade of the new millennium that I simply assumed that people had become more sophisticated in the 5 years since I had last resided there. The Olympics had happened; a flood of foreigners had come to China to do business, teach English, and study Mandarin; average people were well-acquainted with American pop culture and Western products. I figured that people were just too cool now to be interested in foreigners, or at least too cool to appear interested.

TOTALLY WRONG.

It turns out that it was simply a case of being too intimidated to come up and speak to two foreigners walking down the street or eating dinner together. China’s general public may well be more sophisticated now than they were in 2004, but as soon as I was traveling alone this fall, the interest from strangers started up again with a vengeance.

This time, however, my Chinese was much improved. Since it was slightly off-season for tourists, I was often the only foreigner in the endless string of 8-to-a-room hostels I occupied – and unless you’re feeling really tough, it’s hard to keep up the ruse that you don’t understand when your bunk mates are all talking about you two feet away.

So I would introduce myself, and that would begin the two-hour conversation about life in America, life in China as an American, superficial analyses of China’s grand economic and political strategies, and so on. Occupy Wall Street activities were just hitting the Chinese news (and were uncensored, at least initially, I’m sure because the Chinese government took pleasure in the sight of what appeared to be massive anti-capitalist protests in the world’s richest nation).

The people staying in these hostels were usually university students traveling on their school break, and I found the prevailing attitude about the OWS protests to be fascinating: that it indicated the end of the United States. I had several people ask me, in all seriousness, when Obama would be resigning.

A common sentiment expressed to me by Chinese acquaintances in all walks of life has been that the worst attribute society can have is luan: disorder, or even chaos. But because of the heavy censorship of the press, I’m not sure most Chinese people know how luan society there already is; the huge protests in Wukan, Guangdong this fall and winter were only the most explosive of an increasing number of incidents of “social unrest” happening in China every year (some 180,000 in 2010 alone, according to Tsinghua University Professor of Sociology Sun Liping). Without access to that knowledge, you can see why people would look at images like the following being blasted all over the internet, and assume that the end is nigh:

I tried to explain that these were protests about economic inequality and outrageous corporate power in the US political process, and that if the US were going to crumble it probably wouldn’t be because of these incidents, but I’m not sure they believed me.

At any rate, I found these conversations refreshing for their (relative – very relative) depth. I don’t know if it’s because I spend a lot of time hanging out in the Chinese boondocks, but the average conversation someone strikes up with me about America go no further than this (verbatim, no joke):

Shop Keeper: Oh, you’re American! America is great.

Me: Why do you say that?

Shop Keeper: America is developed. (“美国的发展好.”)

While these conversations are usually painfully uninformed, they’re always very friendly. It’s certainly pretty unusual to hear a Chinese person say that they hate America. Much more typical is having someone inform you, completely unsolicited, that they hate hate HATE the Japanese, but that they think America is just terrific. So while I was getting used to having random people approach me for a quick chat again, I was unprepared for the following scene that occurred on my last afternoon in Hangzhou.

Scene: Bird sits in an anonymous restaurant eating braised tofu with rice. Mid-bite, a Random Old Man (ROM) plops himself down in the empty seat across from her.

ROM: Hey, are you Russian?

Bird: No, I’m not Russian. I’m American.

ROM: Not Russian, huh?

Bird: Nope.

ROM: China has good relations with Russia, you know. And Germany. And France.

Bird: You don’t say.

ROM: But you’re American. (Beat) I hate America.

Bird: Why would that be?

ROM: You guys are messing with our economy!

Bird: We’re messing with your economy? Are you aware of the fact that the Chinese government owns over a trillion dollars of US debt? And that China has protectionist policies about its own industries while flooding the US with cheap, low-quality goods – goods whose price is only so low because the Chinese government controls the value of the renminbi?!

ROM: Hey, don’t get mad.

Bird: Sure, why should I be mad? You only interrupted my lunch to tell me that you hate my country.

ROM: It’s just that I hate Obama, that black guy.

Bird: Really – and why is that?

ROM: He’s made a really bad impression on average Chinese people.

Bird: Exactly which of Obama’s policies are you against?

ROM: Why is America involved in so many wars, like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan? Iraqis are people too, you know.

Bird: I’m sure most Americans would agree with you there. Actually, many Americans are against those wars. We have protested in the streets, but our government doesn’t listen to us. It’s important to remember that people are different from their governments – that governments make decisions without consulting their people, policies that often contradict the people’s wishes.

ROM: That’s because you Americans have too many political parties.

Bird: Actually we only really have two.

ROM: Well, that’s too many. We Chinese only have one. The Communist Party.

I wanted to visit Hangzhou because I had heard that it was some sort of watery, Chinese urban paradise.

You would think that I would have learned by now that Chinese cities inevitably come with hideous pollution, the same old chain restaurants, and a disturbing number of flyovers, but what can I say? I had read Tang poet Bai Juyi’s (白居易) lyric poems about Hangzhou and thought What the hell, maybe it’s still like this!

Come on – doesn’t this just slay you?

North of Lone Hill Temple, west of the Jia Pavilion, The water’s surface has just smoothed, the foot of the cloud low. Wherever you go new-risen orioles jostle for the warmest tree: What are they after, the newborn swallows that peak at the spring mud? A riot of blossoms not long from now will be dazzling to the eye, The shallow grass can hardly yet submerge the horse’s hoof. Best loved of all, to the east of the lake, where I can never walk enough, In the shade of the green willows, the causeway of white sand.

Like so many places of historic interest in China, the local tourist industry would have you believe that West Lake in its present form has been in continuous existence in Hangzhou for two thousand years – not so, of course. But in fairness, there are records dating back a couple millennia describing a large body of water known by a multitude of names including West Lake, Qiantang Lake, Fangsheng Pond, and – my personal favorite – Wulin Water. Plus, West Lake is so bewitching that I’m inclined to dispense with my normal skepticism.

So as we wind up the weekend, here’s a little beauty from West Lake to take with you.

I don’t have the technical access to black out this blog today in solidarity with efforts to stop SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act that deeply threatens our internet freedoms in the US) – but if I could black it out, I would.

Read more about SOPA, why it is such a disaster, and why we must stop it, here.

I mostly share with you stories about journeys past, but here’s one about a journey yet to come: for a couple years now, RP and I have had a scheme for a massive walking journey, from Hangzhou to Beijing along China’s Grand Canal.

For those of you not in the know: the Grand Canal is one of history’s great works of human engineering. Some 2,500 years ago, southern sections of this canal began to be built to facilitate trade and create a military supply route; over the following 1,500 years further sections of the north-south canal were built, ignored, abandoned and rebuilt, based on the economic and military whims of subsequent dynasties’ emperors. It was not until the 13th century that the various pieces of the canal were all linked and repaired by the Mongols, those pesky invaders to whom present day China owes thanks for an entire tourist industry (see: The Great Wall).

In the nearly 1,000 years since that time, the Canal as a whole has gone through cycles of prominence and disuse, recently returning to the spotlight with the advent of the South-North Water Transfer Project which…well, don’t even get me started on the environmental, economic and social problems associated with this plan, the most massive water transfer project in the history of the world, involving as it does not just a transfer north from the Yangze River but also numerous other water sources including that of the Qinghai-Tibetan and Western Yunnan Plateaus.

In any event, the theoretical walk will follow the route below – we figure we’ll allow three months to do the whole thing, south to north.

Map created by Ian Kiu

There are a number of reasons this journey hasn’t happened yet (and probably won’t happen for years now that we’re back in the US), not the least of which is that it’s actually pretty difficult to figure out where you’re supposed to walk. The map above makes it look so simple - We’ll just follow that blue line until we get to Beijing! - but, of course, it wouldn’t be. It’s not like it’s got a boardwalk or anything.

This route would take us through some of the most (fascinatingly, disgustingly) industrial and least lovely parts of China, and would involve navigating by foot through sprawling cities, factory towns, and numerous restricted areas of government and military activity, no doubt – and those are just the places where there is a visible Canal to follow. We have heard that, particularly in the north, the Canal has become so silted up that you can’t even tell it’s a waterway at all.

In the end, it might be a journey of the mind more than anything else, with knowledge of the historical and social importance of the route playing as important a role as the sites along the walk itself. Either way, all I can say about the Grand Canal for the moment is this: I walked along it for one day.

After arriving in Hangzhou from Taipei via Shanghai (bullet trains truly are the most astounding technological development), I dropped my belongings at a friendly hostel and set out to experience a soupçon of our future walk along the Canal.

I took a public bus to a modestly interior point on my Hangzhou city map where the Canal seemed to appear, with the goal of following it east to its outlet into the Qiantang River, which flows out into the East China Sea. After a healthy dose of head scratching and asking eight people for directions (did I ever tell you I have a terrible sense of direction? It’s awful. It’s amazing that I make it out of so many strange places alive), I made it to the Grand Canal.

I figured that if any part of the Grand Canal were going to be charming, this would be it. And indeed, the city of Hangzhou has done a very nice job of curating little stretches of it in the downtown area, complete with continuous stone-paved pedestrian walkways from which to observe the amusing variety of crafts plying the waters of the Canal.

There are even places where you can rent city bikes along the Canal, all the better to impress your new girlfriend with your riding skills as she dangles precariously off the handle bars (or that seemed to be what people were using them for mainly, anyway).

Just as I was beginning to wonder how long all of this pedestrian-focused nicety would last, I had my answer:

Time for a little urban off-piste.

I followed the Canal along its non-pedestrian byways for a couple hours, past various people doing shady things including dumping hazardous waste; removing large, mangled fish from the water; and the inevitable small groups of dudes doing drugs. I’m a lot chiller around the open use of heavy drugs than I used to be, thanks to the work I did with IV drug users while living in Kunming. I gave them a quick smile, they gave me a look of utter mystification, and I carried on walking.

It was right around here that I noticed that the path ahead ran straight into the water, and that the pedestrian walkway picked back up on the other side of the Canal. (Why do I seem to be perpetually, in all such situations, on the wrong side of the water/highway/train tracks?)

I gamely asked the gentlemen you can see in the distance, ferrying mysterious cargo, if they would transport me to the other side. They laughed for longer than was necessary.

After scrambling up the steep bank to an overpass (get your tetanus shots before coming to China, everybody), I realized just how late the day had gotten.

I was going to have to hurry in order to make it to the Qiantang by dark, and my map had ceased to be sufficiently detailed to be useful. Racing alongside six-lane roadways and towering new housing developments that block out all of the daylight, dust from the construction sites (i.e. the whole eastern part of the city) rose in clouds. I wrapped a thin scarf around my nose and mouth.

After a final haul past a disused stadium, a gargantuan and sandy open lot that will probably be 5,000 new housing units next month, and a sudden proliferation of seedy hole-in-the-wall internet cafes, I made it to the point where the Grand Canal meets the Qiantang River.

It’s…not spectacular, is it? It’s too polluted to be spectacular. Instead, it’s just ordinarily vast – vast in a way that is not done justice by these photos.

But urban travel in China is like that; it’s mafan – a pain in the neck. It’s noisy, polluted, and more exhausting than seems reasonable. All of the quietude necessary for appreciation has to come from some deep, protected corner of your mind. You must survey this spot where water comes together with other water, as Raymond Carver wrote, and you must think:

This is the beginning of a path leading over a thousand miles to the north. Emperors, generals, peasants, and mercenary schemers of every kind have used this channel over two and half millenia for trade, for travel, for war. How many fortunes have been made along this canal? And how many lives were lost in creating it?

I am, somehow, back in America; I’ve been back for over a month, actually. Having gotten so used to living Elsewhere, RP and I now find ourselves in a place as strange as Brooklyn, as William Styron wrote.

I’m always amazed by the suddenness of the end of a journey; the hiking trail opens out onto the road, and suddenly you’re on a bus or in a car being whisked back to civilization. Or your backpacking travels end and you’re on a plane, seemingly entering the country whose airline you’re flying as soon as you board. You watch a movie, perhaps you sleep, and twelve hours you’re on the other side of the world.

It’s unnatural and confusing to cover so much distance so quickly. The flight from New York to Shanghai is 15 hours; that’s 10 hours shorter than the bus ride RP and I took in May just to get from New Orleans to Miami, although the cultural distance we traversed was far greater in the first instance. If we still regularly traveled more slowly – walking instead of driving around our cities, taking boats across oceans and trains overland instead of flying – I think we would have more respect for the cultural differences we inevitably encounter when we travel. If it took you four weeks to get to another country instead of five hours, you would certainly expect it to be unlike the place you had come from.

For whatever reason, I usually find the culture shock of going to China far less severe than the shock of coming home. I used to have a personal myth that I didn’t experience culture shock at all when going to China – but one benefit of keeping a blog is that I know that isn’t true, since I wrote about it here, here and here.

I suppose I’ve gotten used to going between the US and China, such that I don’t experience the effects of reentry as acutely as I once did. Every time I come back to New York City I marvel at the charming streets and the small scale of city compared to the average Asian capital. I am astounded by how well ordered the public services are and, unavoidably, how much money there is sloshing around this town.

After my first stint of living in China in 2004 (I taught English in a small town in Guangxi province), I returned to New York during the peak of the city’s fine and fragrant late spring and cried for two days straight. (Something about being overwhelmed by the technicolor glory of Manhattan, as well as having a well-developed flare for the dramatic.) Coming back this time, however, has been a quiet experience; mostly mellow and happy. I remember that when I was newly arrived in Kunming in mid-2009, it struck me that I had made it back to China! Finally! With a job and an apartment and everything was going to be great! I was so joyful and optimistic that I did a little dance around my living room. And on my second night back in New York this November, I did the same little dance of joy – so I guess this must be the right decision, for now.

The relative speed with which you can now travel from the US to China is enough to give you cultural whiplash, but what makes it worse is that each of those countries is such a world – no, a universe – unto itself that being in one utterly erases the experience of the other. While living in China I couldn’t quite believe that I had ever lived in America – and I’ll admit that I’ve been hiding from my blog because I can’t quite believe that the experiences I describe here were ever really my life.

Still, I have plenty of moments in which I lift my head to survey my surroundings and wonder where on earth I am and – more to the point – why I don’t have a ticket booked to somewhere else.

A minor remedy to this feeling came recently, when I found out that I have finally (after many weeks of anxiety, 20 months of preparation, and boring RP to death with the details) been accepted to grad school to study nurse-midwifery. I am absurdly excited – but I’m also still waiting to interview at two other schools in January before committing to the place I’ve been admitted.

To that end, we’ll be on the road again in a few weeks’ time: we’ll vacate the sublet we’ve been holding down in central Brooklyn and take the train across the US from NYC to Chicago, and from there to San Francisco. At only 68 hours, the journey won’t come close to competing with the Trans-Siberian, but I’m entranced by the route we’ll be taking: during the first leg we’ll head north from New York City, and then west past three of the Great Lakes – Ontario, Erie, and Michigan.

From Chicago we’ll be riding the California Zephyr through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. For you seasoned American travelers out there, perhaps this seems old hat. But honestly, I know more about Laos than I do about Nebraska. I’ve spent more time in Indonesia than I have in Illinois.

So what do you think: can I be a tourist in my own country for a while? BirdAtHome? Let’s give it a try.

I do have a backlog of stuff from my final travels in China that I’ll post over the next couple weeks. Here’s a sneak preview from the city of Hangzhou:

If you’ve lived in China, going to Taiwan is a like going to an alternate universe. China, but not China.

It’s a place that invites comparison and analogy, and I found myself struggling to get a grip on the enormous familiarity of the place while enumerating its many differences from the Mainland.

It’s like China but without all the people!

It’s like China but without all the authoritarianism!

It’s like China but everyone in Taiwan stands in line and says please and thank you!

It’s like China but with freedom of the press and tropical beaches and absurdly delicious Southeast Asian-influenced food!

And when I put it like that, it kind of sounds like China…but paradise.

There were plenty of things about Taiwan that flummoxed me – for example, the fact that I could speak to people, but had a really hard time reading anything at all. Taiwan uses traditional Chinese characters, whereas the Mainland uses a system of simplified Chinese characters; a brief example of how complicated this can be is the name of Taiwan itself. In simplified characters it looks like this: 台湾. In traditional characters, it’s this: 臺灣 – i.e. so complicated that you can’t even see all the individual strokes on your computer screen.

It seems to me that the difference between Mainland Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin is about as big as the difference between British and American English. As an American, you probably wouldn’t have too much trouble understanding British English – but that’s because you’re a native English speaker. (Unless a Brit told you to do something like “Kindly put your counterpane on the car bonnet,” in which case you’d probably be mystified.) As a non-native Mandarin speaker, I was often left wondering what on earth people were talking about when they told me I could ride my 机车 to the 捷運 (ride my motorcycle to the subway), because I would have said that I was going to ride my 电动车 to the 地铁.

I know this is all a little abstract if you don’t speak Chinese, so let me get right to the point: political realities aside, for those of you who are wondering if Taiwan feels like it’s a part of China when you visit – no. It does not. It feels like a different country.

*****

In the end, our trip to Taiwan was slightly star-crossed. First, we missed our flight, which caused much anxiety and laying out of additional dollar bills. After spending our first few days exploring Taipei, it began to bucket down rain the night before heading to Hualien.

By the time we hit Hualien, we were in the throes of Tropical Storm Nalgae, meaning that we could barely leave our hotel room for two full days. Then I woke up with the worst head cold I’ve had in years, complete with giant, swollen glands and a croaky voice that I was hoping sounded seductive but I’m pretty sure just sounded tubercular.

After the rain finally cleared we were able to see Taroko Gorge and Taiwan’s dazzling East Coast, and had a blissful couple days on Green Island – and then RP’s grandfather passed away. We ditched plans for visiting the city of Tainan and headed straight back to Taipei so that RP could get the next flight out to New York via Tokyo.

I figure that if I loved Taiwan, even considering all that went wrong, it must be a highly lovable place. My affection for the place, however, was tinged with the familiar feeling that there was some pretty serious misdirection going on when I was educated about “Chinese culture” as an undergrad in East Asian Studies.

I’ve written before about the importance that was given to Mainland China when I was an undergraduate – Taiwan was never spoken of except in little staged debates to test your vocabulary (“cross-strait relations”, “political autonomy”, “difference of opinion”…). When, as a first year student, I expressed interest in East Asian Studies, I was immediately counseled to go study in China – meaning Beijing. This was where “real China” was, I was told – the only China. But I’ve discovered that that is a little like a Chinese student wanting to study English in “the West” simply being told to go to America – as if there were no Canada, England, or Australia.

Having spent so much time studying Mandarin and being focused on the Mainland, going to Taiwan made me do a double take. Wait- I could have studied here instead? In this place where they speak and write a beautiful Mandarin? Where they have an entirely alternate history, dominant culture, religious practices, minority languages, and view of the world?

Why didn’t anyone tell me?!

Again, it’s not that the Mainland isn’t fascinating – it’s that there are other fascinating places to experience Chinese culture, and these places are usually ignored in institutional settings like universities. I have to admit that it’s a little late – or, better, just bad timing – for me to start over in my engagement with “Chinese culture”. You all know that I’m a little weary of the whole business. I’m hoping that, when I return to the States and take a bit of a break from all things Chinese, I’ll be ready to re-engage and that Taiwan (and diaspora Chinese cultures) will be a part of that process. Taiwan inspired me to reassess my education about China and my level of Mandarin ability (ugh), and in return I ought to give it some serious attention.

For now, here are the places we went on our little trip to an alternate universe:

As everyone does, we began with several days in Taipei.

Longshan Temple

Danshui Night Market. (Apologies to squid rights activitists; there has been lots of squid violence on this blog.)

Taipei 101, the 2nd tallest building in the world (Dubai is such a spoiler)

We then hopped on a train for the several hour ride to Hualien, generally viewed as a good base city for exploring the East Coast. When the tropical storm finally cleared, we managed to get out for a beautiful walk in classic RP fashion (RP walk = normal person walk duration [hours] x 4 + mud + bushwhacking).

Qixingtan

We finally decided to make a break for Taroko Gorge, our entire purpose for coming to Hualien. We rented a car in Hualien, drove to the parking lot of Taroko National Park, caught a public bus into the Gorge, and then walked the many kilometers back to the car. (Taroko National Park has a very good website here if you’re planning a trip.)

Even if you’ve just hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge, Taroko is totally worth it. Unfortunately, damage done by the storm meant that the normal crystal blue river flowing through the Gorge was mostly grey, and many of the small hiking trails were closed. It was glorious nonetheless.

After hiking out to the car, we drove down Taiwan’s East Coast Highway 11 as the sun set. We weren’t sure where we would be sleeping but, as if by magic, the world’s most perfect B&B appeared right on the coast. We were the only guests. We stepped out briefly for the freshest seafood dinner imaginable, being served up just down the road, and then sat on a deck overlooking the Philippine Sea, wondering how we might manage to convince the B&B owner to let us stay forever.

We awoke at 5:30am for the sunrise.

We ended our coastal drive at Taitung, where we returned the car and spent a night before getting on the ferry to Green Island, less than an hour’s ride away. (Note: Much is made of the fact that this is a very bumpy ride and people often get seasick. That’s all true, but if you just take a little sea sickness medicine in advance and have a few saltines, you’ll be totally fine. Seriously not worth paying double the price to take a puddle jumper flight…)

Green Island is a little gem off Taiwan’s southern east coast where you can snorkel, swim, and get yourself all wrinkly in the hot springs. Your motorcycling skills had better be up to snuff, since that’s how you get around the island. (I managed to motorcycle us all around and, unlike on Cat Bat in Vietnam, didn’t crash! Very pleased.)

Green Island is also a former penal colony for political prisoners during Taiwan’s martial law period; there is now a “Human Rights Memorial” to those prisoners. I was under the misapprehension that the island was only a former place of imprisonment, but in fact, you can walk right by the building that still incarcerates some of Taiwan’s (supposedly non-political) prisoners. Just in case you start to feel too good about your vacation.

Sleeping Beauty Rock

Human Rights Memorial

Perfect water for swimming

After finding out that we needed to get back to Taipei immediately, we took the ferry back to Taitung, took a train to Kaosiung, and managed to get the highspeed rail back to the capital. It’s amazing; you can get from Taiwan’s southern-most tip back to Taipei in just a few hours.

And the rest you know: after a couple days on my own in Taipei, I flew back to the Mainland for some solo adventuring.

A week’s worth of clothes, a bag of toiletries, my neglected little journal. The many electronics that I’m hoping will survive my continuing travels in Asia: laptop, camera, Kindle. Souvenir currencies from a few countries. The contents of my bags reflects the vaguely uncertain nature of this period: khaki skirt and sandals for the tropics; long underwear and a woolen knit hat for the desert at night.

A few days ago, I was traveling with probably twice as much stuff – more than I needed, I guess. RP relieved me of much of it (a gentle shove in the direction of practicality) when he had to suddenly leave Taiwan to attend the funeral of his grandfather, a lovely man who will be much missed and whom I am so glad to have known, albeit only for the last few years of his life.

So now, unexpectedly, it’s just me, finishing off an abbreviated version of the trip RP and I had planned: around Taiwan, back to the Mainland for Hangzhou, Shaoxing, and Nanjing, and finally to Xinjiang, that massive region of China’s far northwest.

Longterm traveling with a friend is an intense experience – you spend every day together, making endless little choices, balancing each of your personalities and various priorities. When your fellow traveller is also your husband, the intensity is even greater; you can find that you haven’t spent more than five minutes apart in weeks. And when that fellow traveller suddenly disappears, you can feel pretty naked.

For these three and half weeks I’m on my own, and I’m trying not to feel ambivalent about it. On the one hand, these are places I’ve really wanted to travel – particularly Xinjiang. On the other hand, I had this vision of how the trip was going to be, and RP was a big part of the vision. Time to regroup.

I’m heading back to the Mainland tomorrow morning – I know, I’m leaving already and I haven’t even told you how the two weeks in Taiwan have been! I’ll describe the bulk of the trip in my next post, but for now, let me just tell you about today.

*****

Today is a national holiday in Taiwan, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the country, officially the Republic of China. (This is not to be confused with the People’s Republic of China – that would be the hulking landmass inhabited by 1.4 billion people just across the Taiwan Strait claiming this island as a rogue province…I’ll get to that business in my next post.)

The Taiwanese people I have met are very much into their distinct identity as Taiwanese, and the official propaganda about the separateness of Taiwan from Mainland China is no joke: this is a place where the official calendar is pegged to the founding of the Republic of China. I’m not kidding; you may think it’s currently 2011, but in Taiwan it’s the year 100. In the US, I am regarded as having been born in 1983; in Taiwan, I was born in the year 72.

Now, that’s all fine with me. Want to start your calendar at the founding of your country, instead of at the supposed birthday of an ancient religious leader from Nazareth? Go right ahead. But I did figure that, in a place that essentially regards everything before its founding as pre-history, the 100th anniversary would be a big deal. I got up this morning, having watched the official flag raising and presidential speech on TV

(BlahblahblahSUNYATSENWASTHEMANblahblahblahRANDOMSTATSTICSABOUTWHYTAIWANISAWESOMEblahblahblahTAIWANISOURHOMELAND…sorry, it’s hard for me to get riled up by Ma Ying-Jeou, one of the world’s consummate snivelly-mannered bureaucrats. It’s like watching Mr. Smithers give a high school commencement speech.)

and ventured out to take part in the revelry I was sure would be happening.

Or, not so much.

I walked a few blocks – all business as usual. I headed straight for the Presidential Palace, where just moments before I had seen tanks parading around on TV, having heard fighter jets roar over the city – but almost everyone had dispersed. I ended up at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial – alright, here were some minor crowds. But if I hadn’t already been to the Memorial and known that normally it’s pretty empty, I wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Where were the block parties?! Where were the overpriced barbecue and bottled water hawkers?! Why was nobody’s face painted to look like the Taiwanese flag?!

I did happen to run into a cool mini-parade of these 10-foot tall Daoist temple guards, but that only lasted for 5 or 10 minutes.

It took my friend NF, who I saw later in the day, to enlighten me: according to him, most Taiwanese people, proud as they are of being Taiwanese, don’t actually give a rat’s ass about the centennial anniversary. Turns out, NF reminds me, that 40 years of martial law makes some people less than totally enthusiastic about celebrating official anniversaries, and doesn’t particularly put them in the mood to eat festive barbecue.

Man, I’m so naive.

*****

Apparently, there was a giant, centenary fireworks display held in Taipei tonight, but I was faced with a choice of events: fireworks in 95% humidity, or a rare and spectacular (and FREE) performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (e.g. “Symphony of a Thousand”) by the Taiwanese National Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the great Lü Shao-Chia.

I went with the Mahler, and it was glorious. A bombastic epic, an entire world of musical plots and characters, a swirling mass of musical ether.

Recently, I’ve so been missing live musical experiences like this one that tonight, presented with such an onslaught of beautiful noise, I thought my chest might burst with glee. At the end of each of the two movements I felt as if I had been bodily launched into space. (NF, a person far less starved for such concerts than I, pointed out that the massive ensemble seemed a tad tired, having performed this beast last night as well, but I say HEY – I thought it was tremendous.) I know it’s a random thing to do on the last night of a trip to Taiwan, but you have to take these chances (FREE TICKETS) when they come along.

I hesitate to post the video below, because obviously it does no justice to the experience of hearing this piece live, but I feel like I have to post it for the benefit of those who haven’t heard Symphony No. 8 before.